00:00What do you think the key takeaways are from this trip, apart from obviously what's been taking place along the trade lines?
00:06Well, good morning to you, David and Yvonne.
00:08Yes, I just, well, essentially, I think overall, we found the meeting between President Trump and President Marcos to be sort of like a good meeting.
00:22And not only that, I think there's a connection there, which is very important, I think, we all know with President Trump.
00:29He always believes in a personal relationship with any leader of any nation.
00:35And I think that President Marcos and President Trump kind of hit it off very well.
00:40So having said that, there are many aspects of our relationship.
00:43It's not only economic.
00:44Obviously, there's our very important defense alliance with the United States, which is obviously a key factor in our relationship right now.
00:57And also, of course, the people-to-people ties that we have.
01:01We have 4.3 million Filipino Americans living in the United States.
01:05And I think we have about 700,000 Americans living in the Philippines.
01:08So with that, I think overall, as I said, it was a very good, I would say, an excellent opportunity for the two leaders to be able to get to know each other well.
01:22They have known each other even before President Trump became president.
01:25But this time, as both leaders of their countries, I think it's a good start.
01:33Yeah, Ambassador, a lot of attention, and understandably so, has been put on one percentage point drop from 20% to 19%.
01:43And some of the critics, I'd like to hear your thoughts on it, have said that President Bongbong didn't really achieve very much as far as bringing down that specific tariff.
01:52What is the response from the government?
01:55Well, I think that it's not – I would say that that is the start.
02:01But there's still time for us to be able to get some more details on how we can manage to bring it perhaps a little much slower than that.
02:12We're still looking at the possibility.
02:13But also the details on the no tariff for any imports coming to the Philippines.
02:21We're still looking at – there are so many details that were not discussed.
02:26So the discussion with President Trump and President Marcos is mostly on the overall picture of our – on the tariff, but nothing came on the details.
02:38And that will have to be discussed by our negotiators.
02:43So 19% might not be final, Ambassador.
02:46I'm just wondering, how – what's the ideal situation?
02:48How low do you think Philippines can go or is at least aiming for in order to stay competitive with other ASEAN nations?
02:55Well, there was a – there was an announcement that came out of the White House today.
03:00I think that – I think President Trump said that the lowest he will go is 15%.
03:04So obviously, all countries are going to try to get to that point, a 15% tariff.
03:11So obviously, we'd like to see that happen to our – our relation – our trade agreement with the United States.
03:20Japan, I think, got the 15% tariff rate.
03:25And that's because they have a $600 billion commitment to invest in the United States.
03:31We don't have anything like that.
03:33But just nonetheless, we're still looking at the possibility of bringing that lower since we still have time to negotiate this.
03:43Ambassador, one of the other key components of this relationship, which you've highlighted – we heard it from President Trump as well –
03:49the Philippines is a key military partner.
03:52To that extent, could you maybe shed some light and more color on what was announced?
03:57Were there any new security guarantees or support that the U.S. has extended to the Philippines?
04:05Well, I think what was discussed openly at the Oval Office was the fact that the U.S. Congress had approved from their NDA,
04:15the National Defense Act, that they will be setting up an industrial base of the manufacture of ammunition in the Philippines.
04:26And that is a sort of like a joint venture.
04:28That is a very good – what do you call this – a template that we would like to see where we can have the manufacture of defense material.
04:39And it will create jobs, obviously, in the Philippines.
04:42And that's one way that's an investment coming into the country.
04:45That's one particular area where I think there was – we had some discussions on that one.
04:51And I think that both President Marcus and President Trump see that as an opportunity, once again,
04:57to strengthen not only our defense relationship, but also our economic relationship.
05:04Yeah, I believe that – correct me if I'm wrong – I believe that that project is being eyed in Subic, of course, back in the Philippines.
05:14I'm wondering, do you have any more details on that that you could share, any timelines that were talked about as far as that specific sort of exercise is concerned?
05:24I think that we have some companies in the Philippines that already are in that business.
05:29And so they're actually in discussion with some of the companies here in the United States that are also in that kind of business also.
05:37So we're looking at potential joint ventures or possibly an investment coming directly from the United States government.
05:47We'll see what happens.
05:48It's still too early to be able to tell you any more than what we already know,
05:53which is basically that there is an intention to set it up around the Subic area.
05:57Understood. And maybe just one last, maybe on defense here, and maybe just to put to bed as well, speculation.
06:05Was there or is there any material conversation around returning, officially returning military bases to the U.S. military bases to the Philippines?
06:14No, there was none.
06:15Mainly because it is clear, and we made it clear to our friends here in the United States,
06:19that it's now in our constitution that we will not allow foreign bases to be established in the Philippines.
06:26It is now in the constitution of the Philippines.
06:31Ambassador, I want to get back to sort of some of the details of this trade agreement,
06:34where Marcus did mention that zero tariffs on U.S. exports to the Philippines will apply only to certain products like automobiles.
06:43Can you give us a bit more?
06:44Are there other sort of products or items that you look at besides automobiles now?
06:50Well, I think there are quite a number of things that are being manufactured in the United States that we do not have in the Philippines.
06:59I can't specify any more than, of course, automobiles and auto parts.
07:03And I think there are other manufacturing, what you call the machinery that we could probably import.
07:14We need to start looking into modernizing some of our manufacturing plants.
07:20There are many items.
07:21There's a long list of items that I think that could really bump up our trade between the Philippines and the United States.
07:29So we'll see what happens.
07:32As I said, it's still being worked out.
07:34The details are still being worked out by our trade negotiators.
07:39Was there ever a discussion about rules of origin or transshipment concerns, Ambassador?
07:49Because there has been some concerns that, you know, there could be some goods that are coming from China, for example,
07:54through Southeast Asia nations, which we have seen in that Vietnam deal with the U.S. as well.
07:59I'm just wondering, were those discussions ever made?
08:02Well, we assured, well, we don't have any of that.
08:05There's no transshipment coming through the Philippines.
08:08And that's the reason why our trade is somewhere between $4.8 billion to $5 billion.
08:16So there is no, there's absolutely no transshipment that's being done in the Philippines right now.
08:25Ambassador, final question.
08:26Did we miss out on anything?
08:28What else do you think is pertinent that we need to know?
08:31Well, I think what's important, again, like I said, is that as far as the trade deal is concerned,
08:36we all know that there's always room for negotiation, like what happened with Japan and what's probably happening to the other Asian countries.
08:46And the reason why we came down to the 19 percent is because that's only what, as President Trump pointed out,
08:51that that is the base for the Asian countries right now.
08:55That is the lowest.
08:56But there is room for more, more improvement on the tariff, as he announced earlier today, that the lowest goes 15 percent.
09:05And so we're all hoping that we'll be able to bring it down to that level.
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